Britons spend more time driving than socialising

It appears that despite rising petrol prices, the average UK motorist now clocks up a record 7,413 miles per year, according to new research. Well....this is modern life in our 'iron cages'!

 

Britons have become so reliant on their cars that most spend more than one working day (10 hours) every week driving. This compares to just 3.7 hours spent walking, 2.7 hours showering and 4.6 hours socialising with friends and family.

The yearly total of 7,413 miles is the equivalent of driving from London to Cape Town and comes at an average costs of £1,078. As the need for social, shopping and commuting mobility has increased, motorists now spend nearly two more days driving every year than they did ten years ago. The average motorist now spends three full years of their life driving. Men spend 533 hours behind the wheel each year, which is longer than women who spend 506 hours driving each year. Men are also more likely to undertake longer, one-off drives - spending 21 hours a year driving on weekend trips and 29 hours behind the wheel on business.

The top journey for women on the other hand is the daily drive to work (122 hours a year), followed by shopping trips (91 hours) and visiting friends and family (96 hours).

Read more at the original post - 'Britons spend more time driving than socialising'

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‘Stranded: An Eruption of Disruption’

The latest edition of the journal 'Mobilities' is now released: ‘Stranded: An Eruption of Disruption’ and the mayhem that followed the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano – some of the articles have been kindly given free access by their authors which we hope you will download and enjoy.  

 
        Stranded: An Eruption of Disruption
Thomas Birtchnell; Monika Büscher       FREE   
        Anticipation, Materiality, Event: The Icelandic Ash Cloud Disruption and the Security of Mobility
Peter Adey; Ben Anderson               
        On the Edge of Chaos: European Aviation and Disrupted Mobilities
Michael O’Regan                
        A Fiasco of Volcanic Proportions? Eyjafjallajökull and the Closure of European Airspace
Lucy Budd; Steven Griggs; David Howarth; Stephen Ison   FREE   
        Grounded: Impacts of and Insights from the Volcanic Ash Cloud Disruption
Jo Guiver; Juliet Jain         
        People and Technologies as Resources in Times of Uncertainty
David Barton           
        Emotional Eruptions, Volcanic Activity and Global Mobilities – A Field Account from a European in the US During the Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull
Ole B. Jensen          
        Inspired by Eruptions? Eyjafjallajökull and Icelandic Tourism
Karl Benediktsson; Katrín Anna Lund; Edward Huijbens           
        Eyjafjallajökull 4′33″: A Stillness in Three Parts
Daryl Martin           
        Fire as a Metaphor of (Im)Mobility
Bülent Diken    FREE   
Individual Articles    
        Constructing Global/Local Subjectivities – The New Zealand OE as Governance through Freedom
Anika Haverig          
        The Circular International Migration of New Zealanders: Enfolded Mobilities and Relational Places
Allan M. Williams; Natalia Chaban; Martin Holland


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Researchers launch mobile device 'to spot paedophiles'

Lancaster University is back on the digital map of research as its Child Defence project has launched a mobile device 'to spot paedophiles'.See here:

A mobile phone application which claims to identify adults posing as children is to be released.

The team behind Child Defence says the app can analyse language to generate an age profile, identifying potential paedophiles.

Isis Forensics developed the tool after parental concerns over children accessing sites on their mobiles.

But child protection experts warned against such technology lulling people into thinking they are safe. 

Child Defence project leader James Walkerdine, based at Lancaster University, said: "This software improves children's chances of working out that something isn't right."Parents told us they would much prefer to see software solutions that empowered and educated their children to help them protect themselves."

Child campaigning charity NSPCC hopes the application will encourage children to report the crime - but warned of complacency.

Read more at - 'Researchers launch mobile device 'to spot paedophiles''

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Mobile to be used to control satellite

It appears that British engineers are to send a mobile phone into space to control a satellit...according to this post in The Telegraph:

The phone, which will run Google's Android operating system, will take pictures of the Earth later this year.

The project is being run by a British firm called Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, based in Guildford, which wants to test a modern phone in the most hostile environment possible, the BBC reported.

Although it will be a smartphone, the precise model has not been disclosed. It will be the first time a phone has gone into orbit.

Shaun Kenyon, the project manager, said: "Modern smartphones are pretty amazing.

"They come now with processors that can go up to 1GHz, and they have loads of flash memory. First of all, we want to see if the phone works up there, and if it does, we want to see if the phone can control a satellite.

Read more at - 'Mobile to be used to control satellite'

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